Reporting live from HHCN’s FUTURE conference, associate editor Morgan Gonzales shared two striking takeaways from Day 1 that speak directly to why home-based care operational backbone FUTURE conference discussions have centered so heavily on infrastructure and discipline rather than pure innovation.
What Home-Based Care Can Learn From the HME Industry
One of the most impactful takeaways came from a fraud, program integrity, and compliance panel Gonzales moderated, highlighting how much the home-based care industry can learn from the home medical equipment industry. This year marked the first time FUTURE officially combined with sister publication HME Business to cover both worlds in one event, a crossover that proved especially relevant during this conversation.
The DME Moratorium’s Expiration and What It Signals
Hours before the panel took the stage, CMS announced that its six-month temporary moratorium on accepting new Medicare DME supplier enrollment applications expired as of Aug. 27, 2026. Industry experts have previously suggested the DME moratorium’s trajectory could offer insight into the future of the separate home health moratorium, since an extension of the DME pause might have signaled a similar extension for home health.
Mixed Reactions to This DME Moratorium Expiration
Panelists Katie Wehri of the National Alliance for Care at Home, Brian Holzer of Freedom Senior Services, and Gayle Devin of Home Care Delivered discussed the moratorium’s expiration. Devin noted the development carries both positive and negative implications for the DME industry, opening the door for compliant suppliers to expand while potentially giving competitive bidding efforts a “green light” that could further limit provider participation and patient access.
A Shared Call for Precision in Enforcement
All three panelists emphasized that legitimate providers should welcome more precise scrutiny of bad actors, framing the discussion not as opposition to fraud enforcement but as a question of whether enforcement can distinguish intentional fraud from isolated errors or operational shortcomings.
Why Home-Based Care Operational Backbone Discipline Emerged as a Recurring Theme
Across multiple panels, speakers converged on a shared message: providers require a backbone of quality, compliance, and frontline worker experience before pursuing growth or innovation. For Avid Health at Home, that means being intentional about integrating providers after acquisitions.
Verifying “Ground Truth” Before Scaling
Tammy Tenton, vice president of clinical and compliance at Avid Health at Home, described the importance of first verifying “ground truth” through data-quality audits, rather than assuming an acquired organization’s existing processes will translate seamlessly to a larger platform, before standardizing systems, survey readiness, and clinical processes.
Building Growth on a Strong Foundation
Brian Holzer, CEO of Freedom Senior Services, compared his approach to growth to building a house: get the first floor right, and additions later won’t cause the whole structure to fail. Stacie Bratcher, CEO of LiveWell Partners, echoed that discipline is as much about clinical capacity as systems, describing efforts to build density in LiveWell’s markets so clinicians can be more effective and the company can meet higher-acuity needs, rather than growing purely for growth’s sake.
A Consistent Message Across Different Growth Strategies
Whether the topic was acquisitions, franchising, or new technology, one of the clearest messages across FUTURE’s Day 1 panels was that the industry’s next phase will reward organizations that can move fast while prioritizing discipline and staying grounded in why home-based care matters in the first place.
What This Home-Based Care Operational Backbone FUTURE Discussion Means Going Forward
With the DME moratorium’s expiration offering a partial, though not definitive, signal about the trajectory of the parallel home health moratorium, providers navigating both regulatory environments may find continued value in watching how the DME sector’s competitive bidding and enforcement dynamics unfold in the coming months. Given the consistent emphasis across acquisitions, franchising, and technology discussions on building operational discipline first, home-based care leaders evaluating their own growth strategies may want to prioritize data-quality verification and clinical capacity building before scaling further.
What to Watch Going Forward
As FUTURE continues beyond Day 1, industry observers will likely watch for additional panel insights on how home-based care providers are navigating the broader federal fraud crackdown alongside their growth ambitions. Given the parallel lessons drawn from the DME sector’s own moratorium experience, this home-based care operational backbone FUTURE conference theme may continue shaping how providers balance innovation with the compliance and infrastructure discipline panelists described as foundational to sustainable growth in the sector.
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